Air Force Portal improves collaboration with professional networking

  • Published
  • By Patty Welsh
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. --  The Global Combat Support System-Air Force Program Management Office at Hanscom AFB is set to release an update to the Air Force Portal with new Web 2.0 features. The Airman's Professional Network incorporates some of the best ideas from social and professional networking sites.

"We know young Airmen are familiar with technology and using sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace," said 1st Lt. Alexander Gruenther, chief of Air Force Portal Operations. "We want to ensure the Air Force Portal keeps pace by maintaining its status as the number one place Airmen go to get information."

Today, many Air Force personnel use workspaces on the "Personal Space" tab of the Air Force Portal to customize and tailor information and applications most useful to them. Users can design their own workspace using the gallery of applications, widgets, and feeds or choose from prebuilt workspaces, known as common operating pictures, that are developed and maintained by the Air Force's functional communities.

With this new capability, users will be able to discover and share workspaces with others in their network for even greater productivity.

As part of this upgrade, each user's profile has been expanded to include a "Wall" and additional tabs for "Contact Information," "Badges and Decorations" and "Career and Training." This additional information becomes the basis for users to connect and reconnect to build their Professional Network.

In order to quickly and efficiently establish their network, people-search features are integrated into the application. Searches can be filtered to find personnel in certain career fields, at a specific base and more.

"This type of user experience is already comfortable to the Airman through personal social networking sites," said Lieutenant Gruenther. "However, in addition to keeping in touch with colleagues, we wanted it to be something that would help Airmen do their jobs more effectively and efficiently."

As Airmen find something of value, such as a document or application, they can either post it on their wall or add it to their workspace. Similar to social media sites, all members of this Airman's network can see the update on a portlet called "Network Updates." Having this portlet encourages conversations, as other members can comment on the topic or use the updated information to link to new information or new people.

"The Airman's Professional Network will help Airmen work together across time and geographic boundaries," said Lieutenant Gruenther. "We want to encourage connections and collaboration whether personnel know each other or not."

Workspaces customized to how each Airman does his or her job leads to greater productivity. The ability to copy a shared workspace saves time and leverages the knowledge of colleagues or experts.

"When personnel retire, separate or move from assignment to assignment, a workspace could be transferred over to incoming employees so they would have a repository of information, tools and solutions to assist them with their new job," said Lieutenant Gruenther.

Program officials have scheduled a beta release for April within the Air Force logistics community. Once data has been collected, the Airman's Professional Network features will be opened to all Air Force Portal users.

"Because all Air Force personnel already have a portal account, it is the ideal system on which to provide enterprise-wide professional networking for the Air Force," said Lieutenant Gruenther.

When the application was demonstrated to senior leaders at the Air Force Information Technology Conference in August 2009, they said it was exactly what the Air Force needed.

"We look forward to the feedback from our user community so we can continue to improve the Air Force Portal and our ability to support each Airman with their mission," said Lieutenant Gruenther.